Texas as a conservative southern state

Palm hypothesizes about the likelihood of Texans supporting a Ford-Rockefeller ticket in the 1976 presidential election. According to Palm, Texans would be more likely to align themselves with someone such as Ronald Reagan, who she believes was more in tune with "southern thought." As Palm describes it, Texas was both a southern state and a conservative state, and as a result, Texans were increasingly oriented towards conservative politics that emphasized a limited form of government. Her comments here reveal the way in which political party alignments and dynamics were changing in Texas during this transitional moment.

Citing this Excerpt

Oral History Interview with Nancy Palm, December 16, 1974. Interview A-0194. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Full Text of the Excerpt

Incumbency carries an awful lot of
weight with it. Let's face it. He brings a tremendous amount of
contracts into the state of Texas and an awful lot of jobs. Particularly
with him being on the Armed Services Committee. And the aerospace
industry, as it is in Texas, is very beholding to Tower. I don't think
Tower will have a terrible problem getting re-elected. I do think that
he's going to be surprised that a Ford-Rockefeller ticket won't carry
the state of Texas. And it won't.

JACK BASS:

Why not?

NANCY PALM:

There will not be a sufficient difference, philosophically, between it
and the Democrat ticket. And the majority of people in the state of
Texas are either Democrats or independents. They will go with the
Democrat nominee. Remember, we had not carried the state of Texas
for a presidential candidate since Eisenhower and
then this last time, '72, for Nixon. And that was with a massive,
massive amount of money spent here. I do not see how a Rockefeller-Ford
ticket can carry Texas.

WALTER DE VRIES:

What kind of a ticket would carry it?

NANCY PALM:

Probably something like a Reagan-Brock, or some new face that's willing
to take a position that is more in line with southern thought. But
again, Texas is not just totally a southern state. It is a conservative
state. This is one of the real - and I hate to use
the word - tragedies of this redistricting that Ben
Barnes foisted upon the state. Ben Barnes and Barbara Jordon. They
thought they still had an establishment which we call the old
conservative Democrat party. And it did not exist. And this
redistricting has thrown the state legislature into the hands of the
liberals. It has accelerated the split between liberal and conservative
thinking. And people do not look at Gerald Ford or Nelson Rockefeller as
a conservative. If, by conservative, you mean a limited form of
government.

WALTER DE VRIES:

What is the difference between a Democratic liberal and conservative in
Texas. We can't find another group in any other southern state like the
Texas liberal. That has a recognized group of so-called liberals.

NANCY PALM:

Probably the reason for that is that you do not find any other southern
state where there are the large number of organized labor that are well
supported by labor unions. This whole gulf coast area is very solidly
union. So that's it's been even more remarkable that we have carried
Harris county where there is a built in union vote against
us. And a built in minority vote of approximately 40
percent against us. You have what, a 1.2 million Mexican-Americans here
plus a very large black population in the state of Texas. And they tend
to be more liberal. Plus the fact that you've got a strong base of
organized labor. So I would think that that's the reason that Texas has
a split in their Democrat party between liberal and conservative.

WALTER DE VRIES:

But by liberal and conservative you mean the use to which government is
put. More government vs less government.

NANCY PALM:

Yes. I think that's more taxes vs less taxes, more government control vs
less government control.